Seven Inches From The Sun
by Daeleniel Shadowphyre
Summary: AU, Crossover: Duo Maxwell is a fairly well-adjusted former streetrat teenager, at least in the eyes of the world. For an Immortal, that assumption is what keeps him safe, particularly when ancient memories remind him of the missing half of his soul.
1. Chapter One

**Title:** Seven Inches From The Sun  
**Author:** DarkOne Shadowphyre  
**Feedback:**  
**Fandom:** The Sentinel/Highlander/Gundam Wing  
**Genre:** Alternate Universe, Crossover, Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Spiritual  
**Pairing:** 2x13, 3x11, 4x1, 5xC  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** Duo Maxwell is a fairly well-adjusted former street rat teenager, at least in the eyes of the world. For a young man whose real physical age is somewhere in his mid-twenties and his actual age is pushing six thousand, such an assumption is largely what keeps him safe, particularly in the face of memories of days long past and the missing half of his soul he thought lost forever.  
**Warnings:** Fusion, Immortal!Blair, Sentinel!Trieze, violence, blood, death, trauma, sex...  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters and themes... just what I've done with them. This is a non-profit work of fiction.  
**Notes:** gives a forlorn, keening wail and collapses into a terrified and sobbing heap too close to being on the wrong side of madness  
**Dedication:** To Inanna-- you know why.  
**Distribution:** Ask, and ye shall receive.

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**- Chapter One -**

_Blair felt the jangle of Immortal presence a full two minutes before he spotted the man and froze. Casually shifting papers in his bag, he glanced around furtively. This part of the campus was relatively deserted and his heart sank; he did NOT want to get into a duel on Rainier property where just anyone could walk past._

_He finally spotted the other Immortal, a tall and clean-cut man with features Blair would have placed as Germanic. He Felt young, too, but powerful. Blair sighed. Just his luck to run into a headhunter while already running late meeting Jim at the PD. He gave up pretense and stood waiting as the stranger approached._

_'I challenge you, young one,' the stranger said formally. Well, fuck. Apparently the guy couldn't read Quickenings. Blair bit back a retort - he hadn't been young in four thousand years - and nodded shortly._

_'Accepted,' he said. 'However, I would suggest we move this to a more secluded area.' To his credit, the man considered the suggestion._

_'Very well,' he said. 'We don't want any unfortunate interruptions.'_

Honorable headhunter_, Blair thought. That was partly a relief; he wouldn't have to worry about being jumped. Unfortunately, it meant that his challenger wasn't likely to be a hothead, either, which meant Blair couldn't rely on him losing his temper and making a fatal mistake. He turned slightly and gestured towards a copse of trees near the edge of the Green. The stranger nodded and moved towards the trees, staying out of Blair's range. Neither had drawn swords yet, but that hardly mattered. Blair's estimation of his opponent rose another notch._

_Once within the trees, Blair set aside his bag and stretched, working out the sore muscles in his shoulders. He could see the other Immortal doing the same and it made Blair smile; how often did he get challenged by a competent swordsman? Reluctantly, he faced the man and drew his sword from beneath his flannel shirt, then waited. His opponent raised an eyebrow at Blair's choice of weapon but drew his own sword. Blair was interested to note that it was, incongruously with his opponent, an old Middle Eastern scimitar. Blair's own weapon, out of deference to metal detectors and his human crime lab roommate, was a well-sharpened and lacquered bokken made of fire-hardened Lignum Vitae wood, and he'd stopped trying to explain it sixteen hundred years ago._

_'Marcus Anderson,' the other Immortal said, saluting Blair. With a nod, Blair copied him._

_'A'sa,' he said simply. The flicker of astonishment in Marcus's eyes at the old name was enough to make it worth using. And he hadn't voiced his original name in centuries. Blair permitted himself a faint smile, then dropped easily into a ready stance._

_The first clash of weapons was forceful, a mutual display of strength. The two disengaged quickly and circled each other, feinting and testing each other's skill and patience. Blair kept his breathing deep and even as he studied his opponent. Marcus looked very much a fighter, and while Blair was no slouch he was still and academic. Marcus probably had a good store of patience, but Blair could outwait him._

_Sure enough, Marcus attacked with a downward slice to Blair's neck. The slighter man ducked under and away from the blow, countering with a sweep towards Marcus's exposed side which he barely caught. Iron and wood met with a dull clang before the weapons flew away from each other. Blair could see Marcus watching him with a new wariness, sizing up his chances. Blair kept his face impassive, eyes trained on the other man's body, on his eyes, his face, watching for the unconscious signals that would telegraph the next intended move in this deadly dance._

_A feint to the left, then a lunge directly towards where Blair would have been had he not stepped back and to the left into the wake of the feint. Marcus wavered slightly but recovered and turned to lash out fast and low at Blair's legs. Blair skipped back, but not quite fast enough and he grimaced at the bite of metal into his thigh. The cut wasn't particularly damaging even for a mortal, but it hurt and would slow him down a fraction more than he liked. Not to mention it had ruined this pair of jeans, which would raise questions at the PD later._

_Damn, he'd almost forgotten about that._

_Blair shifted his grip and attacked with a renewed purpose. He'd already been late and dragging out this confrontation would just increase the likelihood of Jim coming looking for him. The last thing he wanted was his self-appointed Blessed Protector stumbling across him in the middle of an Immortal duel. He danced forward, then back, his blade slicing through the air in rapid movements. Marcus countered each sweep and thrust, still holding his own but unable to move quickly enough to attack in return._

_Sweat bloomed across Blair's skin from the exertion of combat. He hoped to whatever gods might listen that it wouldn't drip down into his eyes. A mistake at this point would leave Blair minus his head, and how would he explain that to Jim?_

_He feinted right, then shifted left and swung right, catching Marcus deeply across his ribs as the other man tried to avoid what had appeared to be Blair's intended attack. As he fell, Blair swept his blade around, severing head from body. He stared directly into Marcus's dimming eyes as he did, granting the other Immortal the respect of one warrior to another in death._

_He didn't even have time to blink before the Quickening swept over him. Everything that Marcus had been, his personality, memories, his very essence and those of the Immortals he had killed lashed through Blair with the force of an energy storm. Blair dropped to his knees, gritting his teeth against the onslaught and focusing desperately on retaining who he was in the face of this maelstrom of identity. A'sa. The foundling slave boy who'd grown up and died by his master's hand, only to live again, to live and learn and fight and never die. The man who had lived to become Blair Sandburg, adopted son of Naomi Sandburg, and the Guide and Shaman to Jim Ellison, Sentinel of the Great City._

_The storm abated almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving Blair gasping and trembling with energy. Every nerve felt on fire and it was all he could do to kneel on the blood-stained grass, sword held loosely beside him, the body of Marcus Anderson laid out before him with the head at its feet. He knew without looking that his increased Quickening had already healed the cut on his leg but he couldn't quite bring himself to move just yet. Too bad it couldn't fix his jeans, too._

_Something prickled on the edge of his awareness, a familiar presence, and Blair stiffened. Slowly, afraid, he looked to his left towards the edge of the small clearing in the trees and towards the bulk of Rainier's campus. There, staring back at Blair, his face twisted in an expression of fascinated horror, was James Ellison._

_Blair felt his whole world crumble at the sight._

With a strangled cry, Duo Maxwell wrenched himself awake in a cold sweat.


	2. Chapter Two

**Title:** Seven Inches From The Sun  
**Author:** DarkOne Shadowphyre  
**Feedback:**  
**Fandom:** The Sentinel/Highlander/Gundam Wing  
**Genre:** Alternate Universe, Crossover, Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Spiritual  
**Pairing:** 2x13, 3x11, 4x1, 5xC  
**Rating:** R  
**Notes:** Please reference chapter one for summary, disclaimer, and any additional information.  
**Distribution:** Ask, and ye shall receive.

* * *

**- Chapter Two -**

'Duo? Duo! Hey! L2 to Maxwell!'

Duo jerked his head up out of the open circuitry panel and ended up cracking his skull on the top of the maintenance crawlspace for his troubles. Pocketing the pliers and wire-cutters and muttering a few choice curses under his breath, he shimmied down to the entrance of the crawlspace and stuck his head out. 'Yeah, Hilde, what'cha want?'

Hilde Schbeiker looked up at her friend, head tilted in amused exasperation. Duo could guess what was going through her mind. She'd apparently noticed his preoccupation lately and had jumped to the obvious conclusion; he was dating someone. Duo was severely tempted to laugh at her, but that would give the game away and it didn't hurt to let the romantic in Hilde try to analyse his love life.

Or lack thereof.

'Call for you from Howard,' Hilde explained. 'He wants to talk to you about a possible salvage job Terra-side.'

'D'ja leave him hanging again?' Duo asked, scrubbing his hand absently over the grease spot he could feel on his cheek; from the flicker of Hilde's expression he guessed he'd only succeeded in making it worse.

'No, he said you should call him when you get a free moment or two,' she replied. Duo nodded, then waited. He knew Hilde had more to say, and judging by the gleam in her eyes she was matchmaking again. Finally she added with studious casualness, 'That guy Wufei called earlier.' Oh, wonderful.

'Uh-huh,' Duo said, carefully mixing interest and distracted disinterest. That was not a difficult task given he was already calculating how long it would take to finish fixing his ship in preparation for a Terra-side salvage job.

'He said to tell you the case closed early, so his leave was approved after all,' Hilde pushed her short-cropped hair back with one hand, a nervous gesture she'd picked up from Duo. 'He'll be here some time middle of next week.'

It was Friday.

'Am I gonna have to pick him up from the shuttle port?' he asked, ducking back into the maintenance shaft and sliding back to the open panel. He wasn't sure why, but he really wanted the answer to be no. As much as he was looking forward to seeing the Chinese former Gundam pilot turned Preventer, their friendship had always been intense. They swung back and forth between smooth professionalism and explosive confrontation with very little middle ground.

'No, he's made arrangements,' Hilde answered him. A grunt and a few muffled clangs indicated she was following him up into the crawlspace. 'It's nice of him to come all the way out here to visit you for his leave time.'

'I guess,' Duo said absently. He'd actually figured that Wufei just wanted to reacclimate himself to the civilian mindset before going on to L3 to visit Cathy. Duo didn't kid himself into thinking it was any more than his being the safest option. Heero was out of the question; the guy had never really been a civilian in the first place and had never quite left the mindset of a soldier. That was probably a good thing since he was head of security for Winner Enterprises Interplanetary. Of course, that meant that where Heero was, Quatre was, too, and Wufei wouldn't want both of them double-teaming him trying to "help."

Ah, Quatre. In some ways he was as bad as Heero about civilian life, despite having technically been a civilian until he was twelve. His training for the business world had been an asset during the war; strategy was strategy, after all. But at the same time those early civilian - sheltered, Duo acknowledged to himself - years had not prepared Quatre for dealing with the not-so-sheltered real world beyond business, legalities and social games. Being a Gundam pilot had introduced him to some of the less than glamorous realities, but that had been tempered with a soldier's eye and a strategist's mind. Privately, Duo wondered if, in taking over WEI, Quatre wasn't really just trading in one kind of war for another.

Out of all the pilots besides Wufei, Duo was the one who best understood the balance of soldier and civilian. Trowa might be able to reach Wufei - the two of them had almost as much battle-forged history - but Trowa was Cathy's brother. Wufei wouldn't feel comfortable talking to Trowa about his sister, especially when said sister would likely be within earshot. It made Duo feel a bit sorry for Wufei.

Only a bit.

'You two seem pretty close,' Hilde remarked, shaking Duo out of his introspection. When her words registered, he almost snorted.

'No closer than the other guys, really,' And that wasn't actually confirming or denying anything.

'He's cute,' she said next. Gods, she really _was_ trying to set him up!

'He's dating Catherine Bloom,' Duo said, hiding his smirk in the wiring system. 'So unless you want to go up against a jealous professional knife-thrower you're out of luck, babe.'

While Hilde spluttered incoherently, Duo reached into his pocket and retrieved the pliers and wire-cutters. He'd finally spotted the problem with the wiring - a corroded segment near the receptor - and there was enough extra wire there that he could fix it without having to hunt up a piece of scrap wire to use as an extension. Okay, grip the wire with the pliers, position the wire-cutters as close to the port as possible...

'What about Heero?'

It was only by an exercise of supreme control that Duo didn't so much as twitch. Inside, he was shaking with laughter at the very idea, no matter how much Heero might remind him of another solemn protector with piercing blue eyes... 'What about him?' he asked, severing the wire from the port. Quickly he measured down past the corroded segment and clipped it off, lifting it up and out of the wiring system and dropping it to one side.

'Well, you two seemed to really hit it off,' Hilde hinted. Duo sighed audibly and looked up, resting his elbows on the edge of the open panel and met Hilde's eyes seriously.

'Heero,' he said firmly, 'is my best friend. We work exceptionally well together, and if he needed me I'd drop everything and go to him.'

'I noticed,' Hilde remarked slyly. Duo flushed. The first time he'd done exactly that had been during the siege on Sanc Kingdom by Denkim Barton and Mariemaia Kushrenada on Christmas Eve. The second time had been the hostage situation during a diplomatic reception; Heero hadn't actually come to him for help but Duo had gone as soon as he got the call. Since the first war had ended, those instances had been the only emergency calls Duo had received from Heero, for which he was absurdly grateful.

'You're missing the point, Hilde,' he said patiently. 'Those were instances of global emergency. Heero hasn't personally needed me since four months after we sent the Gundams into the sun. Not as anything more than a best friend. When it comes to anything else he needs personally, he goes to Quatre.' Seeing her look, he added sharply, 'And don't even suggest Heero get involved romantically with anyone else; if Heero didn't kill you himself then Quatre would.'

'Aw, you'd protect me, wouldn't you, Duo?' Hilde asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

'Forget it, babe, you're on your own,' Duo said with a slight smirk. 'That guy scares the shit out of me.'

'I thought he was your best friend!' she demanded. Duo's smirk broadened to a grim smile.

'That's Heero. It's Quatre you should really worry about. After all,' he informed her, delving back into the wiring system, 'Heero would only kill you.'

Silence met this pronouncement. Duo felt Hilde watching him, waiting for him to laugh or grin or otherwise indicate the joke. He hadn't been joking, however, so he ignored her, concentrating on stripping a part of the plastic coating from the copper wire core. After several moments, Hilde muttered something about inventory and remember to call Howard and backed out of the crawlspace. Duo waited until he heard her feet hit the concrete below the ship before shifting back from the open panel and resting his forehead against cool steel.

Heero had been his best friend, albeit reluctantly, since their second meeting, when Duo had rescued him from an Alliance-controlled military hospital. Duo had been the only one to recognise the symptoms of heightened senses in the surly Japanese pilot and had taken cautious steps towards helping Heero gain real control of his sight, hearing, and sense of touch. It had relieved Duo greatly that those three senses were the only heightened senses that Heero possessed, so the other boy hadn't needed Duo as much as might have otherwise been the case. And when it became clear that Heero and Quatre were becoming involved, Duo had emailed Quatre as much information on heightened senses as he would need to help Heero through potential rough patches and promptly put the overt knowledge of those senses out of his conscious mind.

It had been almost three years since he'd thought about any of that. He knew why, too. Dwelling on heightened senses reminded Duo uncomfortably of another lifetime when he'd gone by another name and known another blue-eyed protector with five heightened senses instead of just three. Duo smiled faintly; he'd been best friends with that one, too.

_Enough,_ he ordered his brain. _You're letting that dream get the better of you. That was over a thousand years ago; Jim is dead and he's not coming back, so just forget him already and move on!_

_You can't forget the other half of your soul,_ a voice in the back of his mind whispered, bringing a wistful, bittersweet smile to his face before he sternly marshaled his thoughts and emotions and bent back over the task of reconnecting the wire to the port. It was a temporary connection; he'd have to retrieve other tools and come back to it to do a proper job. And to try and locate what had caused the corrosion in the first place.

A growl from his stomach abruptly reminded Duo that he hadn't eaten since yesterday evening. Tucking the pliers and wire-cutters into his pocket, he replaced the panel and shimmied back down to the open hatch. He had to leave the crawlspace to hunt down the tools he'd need for finishing the repairs, so he might as well take a break. And call Howard back about the salvage job.

Duo made a quick detour to the break room for something to tide him over until he could get dinner. Sandwich in hand, he wandered over to the comm station and dialed in the code for the Sweepers' main base. Five minutes later and he was grinning at a balding man with a grey goatee wearing sunglasses and a very loud Hawaiian shirt.

'Howie, man!' he exclaimed in the overly-jovial tones he used when he was being deliberately annoying. 'What's this I hear about you landing a Terran salvage job?'


End file.
